Hi. I couldn't help but notice. Ever since Dibrom completely revamped the portal and upgraded it, the number of users posting in these forums has dropped dramatically. Maybe all the members are still unaware that the forums are back online. Is it just me?

Perhaps there are some people like me who just go to the portal page where previously all the active topics were presented. It's quite time consuming to browse through all the subcategories of the forum to find interesting threads. A solution (for me) is to use the RSS feeds where the active topics are also listed but probably not all people are aware of that.
The best one can do for now is wait until the portal page has been completely restored.

The Link


edit: tempus

The portal redesign has forced me to discover the View New Posts link in the upper right.

Hmm .... I should have a closer look before I post stupid things. There's a "Active Topics" link on the portal page and on the forum page there's the "View new posts link" you mentioned. I feel really stupid now.
But still ... I think the direct integration of the active topics in the portal page was a really nice thing.

The Link

I agree 100%. The Active Topics integration (being displayed by default anytime anyone went to HydrogenAudio.org's main page was a nice feature). Too many people are probably "getting lost" (newbies to site) and not finding the topic they are looking for. If the Active Topics were again displayed by default on the main page near the top to every visitor (without requiring them to find and click on that link) HA would be better off for the (hopefully) increased participation from new users.

While I can't speak for others, I will say moving the Active Topics off of the front page and replacing it with the Wiki has dampened my enthusiam and participation in HydrogenAudio. I realize that Active Topics is just one click away, but the look and feel of the new front page is off-putting. Then again, I was never a fan of Wikis to begin with.

I noticed too that forum is somehow less active lately, but I think this is all good. The way it is now, total newbies won't come to forums asking the same questions (which is the best lossy codec? etc.) 1000th time, but will be instructed on the portal page to go to the wiki where they can find answers. For more interested people, forum will still be an obvious place to discuss things. I'm far from elitist BS and noobs vs 7331 stuff - new members are surely welcome, but IMO current HA layout with more focus on wiki will give better balance.

That depends on how many times you get the "flood control" message. I appreciate all the work Dibrom has put in here, but I do think the board is becoming less and less hospitable to non-members. That may encourage non-members to join, but it might also encourage them to just go elsewhere.

Flood control reduced to 1 second for devs. For normal members it's 3 seconds now. Should be short enough...

That's usually what happens when I encounter such a website. Especially true if it's not Firefox friendly. It all depends whether the hassle outweighs the need, so if the need is great enough, I'll more than like sign up. This is rare though, since there are always other more easily accessible places to get the help I need.

FWIW, I much preferred the old portal page.

I second that...

Sergio

Aside from the forum software changes and the confusion etc that go along with them, for the last few months or so, I have seen a drastic DECREASE in the number of posts by old timers. I know they have probably discussed anything and everyting imaginable over and over again, and maybe some of them have MOVED ON, but to me, their posts/insights have really made this website extremely interesting to read and participate. Just my $0.02

I hope there are plans to integrate the active topics onto the main page once again.

Surely, the bold headline "Recent Forum Activity" is just waiting for a listing of active topics.

You and me both... I figured it was the whole "resistant to change" thing, but it's been a few days and I still really dis-like the new portal page.

Personnaly I am missing the "active topics" on the front page, and the direct link to new posts from the front page.

I liked the previous layout much more.

The current look sucks big time.
I find it clunky and not easy to move around.
Why was the old one changed when it was so successful?
I hope it is fixed ASAP.
I also feel less inclined to visit HA as well...
Cheers
Scott

I too used the "active topics" on the front page. And also it would be nice with a link to rarewares.org on the front page.

Am I completely wrong?

old layout was certainly better

people - let's wait untill Dibrom changed the appearance of the portal. if you interested in making it better, see this:
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....=ST&f=2&t=28578

as a sidenote: yes, I also liked the former design more, but I guess moving the wiki to the main page (i.e. portal) has several advantages regarding the forum noise discussed earlier. FYI, work on it. just complaining doesn't help (much ).

Just set the link in your favourites to
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....=lv&CODE=getnew

Takes you directly to the active topics page

Yes, we're really thinking about a skinning contest. But there will be a seperate announcement for it.

i agree ... :|

I agree completely. Frankly the new portal is very uninviting.

1) Old Portal

2) New Portal

3) Active Topics Page


IMHO #1 wins for those who are lurkers or just want an idea of what's going on, which is probably most of the people who visit the site.

edit: fixed Active Topics link

That shows Posts since your last visit here, not Active Topics. For Active Topics you have to click the Go button next to the drop-down list of categories of topics.

Well, in general, it looks to me like popularity has increased. In that snapshot of the old portal above, there's 231 user(s) active in the past 15 minutes. At the moment, as I'm typing this, there's 294 user(s) active in the past 15 minutes. Of course, that's from waay before the portal was changed, but things certainly don't seem to be going worse .

Radu, Got any more facts and figures? Like number of page visits or whatever (I dont really know what statistics I'm looking for, but I like numbers )

That snapshot is from February 2004. I think to make that arguement either way you need some numbers from just before the change.

People already commented enough on the active-topics thingie, so i'd like to mention something else...

IMHO, the main-reason why the portal currently is confusing, is the design itself, not the content. It is lacking "sectionizing" via colors - so that on first sight already the page is split into sections - as it is now, it appears like one big grey mess without navigation helps for they eye - you have to _read_ the contents to understand they layout of the portal - with a good design, thats not necessary: the eye immediatelly gets an impression of how the layout works without reading too much.

Yes, i do know that its not final and just a temporary solution - just wanted to describe my impressions on how it could be improved.

- Lyx

To the people that are concerned, the active topics are still going to be added back to the portal like I had originally said. I haven't gotten to this because of homework over the weekend and because of the fact that I managed to catch the flu (I'm a little better today, but not much).

I'll work on getting things back to normal as soon as I can though.

This article describes how people view news sites and is worth a read. I think the main problem is that there is no real content in the Main Page section of the portal, which is where our eyes go first. Instead you have to read all this:


Which is not inviting and your eyes tend to ignore it and then jump down to Latest News.

(Hostile user cracks whip)

Yes, that is a joke.

Hope you feel better soon.

Thanks for all your hard work.

I agree with both Lyx and idioteque.

Before, there was some continuity between the forum layout and the main page. Now they are two distinctly seperate looks and feels, which is distracting to those who are used to the old layout. Realigning the color scheme and cordoning (sp?) off the sections more appropriately would certainly serve HA users better.

I also believe the main page can be improved. Here are my suggestions:

1. I think a seperate link to HA.org's "mission statement" and posting instructions is more appropriate than making every visitor read it every time since it at the top of the page.

2. I know it's been mentioned, but I will post it again here for the sake of completeness. Bring back the active topics. Prominently display this section.

3. As well, the news should be prominently displayed. I like that the news section is still there, but I feel that it is neglected because of what idioteque has mentioned.

4. Navigation section needs some work. To me, it feels like a bit of an afterthought right now. I admit that I don't exactly know how to solve this at the moment.

Discuss.

I've been much less active these recent weeks, because I'm busy with other forums (french), and very busy managing an online gaming clan.
But I should get the clan running properly within the next weeks, then expect me once a week at least.

I'm surprised nobody already mentioned that often the forum software fails.
On wednesday there was a failure without any new posts for several hours.
(It was funny to see 9 identical posts written by myself, though. I didn't realize that I've tried to post so often.)
Since the last but one software update, I am no longer able to upload anything. Of course this prevents me from posting (and thus others who would reply).
So a question in principle:
Huge appreciation for your work, Dibrom, but why do you again and again update the software at all ?
"If your system is running fine, be happy and don't change anything." ? I think the software worked fine before the last but one update. Not updating saves problems, saves the work.

again and again update the software? come on, there have been only a few changes in the near past.
the reason for changing something like that could be e.g. to get rid of known bugs. which is not a bad thing. a couple of hours (or even a weekend) of downtime to also aid the users security? worth it IMHO. anyway, reasons for this action have been already discussed before.
besides, the forum is still owned by Dibrom and it's more or less his decision what to do with it and what not.

Speaking for myself, posting on ha.org has dropped off for the following reasons:

1) hydrogenaudio.org doesn't work with FireFox. It just times out after DNS resolution. It's been like this for a couple months now, and I thought that ha.org had totally vanished until today, when I accidentally used IE6! Lo and behold, it's here after all. I've tried 6 different computers, all with Firefox, and received the identical behaviour as if this site is missing.

2) bizarre crap like the "flood control" that I got while searching the forums for "firefox" - and I only clicked once. Was told to wait min. 20 seconds. After a full minute I clicked again, and received the same hostile response. Obviously FireFox is a sore spot with ha.org ?

Nice to know everything's still here, but I wish I could access it normally. Not every computer has IE installed.

Strange I just happened to give firefox another try and see wether I can get used to it a few days ago and HA worked just fine for me in firefox then.

Decided to abandon firefox again for different reasons, but thats not really important here. Anyway as I said, no problems browsing HA at least.

I am also sure many other regular members and some of the moderators use firefox here and I have never heard anyone complain about such an issue yet.

EDIT:
Just started up firefox quickly again to verify this and everything is working just fine.

"Not here". Firefox has been my standard browser for more than two years now, and I've never had any problems browsing and searching HA with it.

Sorry, no idea what might be wrong.. but I guess it might be some browser / web access configuration issue on your end

I have never used anything other than Mozilla in the old days and Firefox since approx Jun. I have been a regular reader for a year now. This site works with Firefox.

However being an addict myself I did not enjoy the downtimes and the new look. One more vote to go back normal frontend. These days I get that wiki stuff 1st. Once we are back I would vote to leave things in peace. Having said that I have no idea how pressing some of the changes were. Maybe they were.

Triza

Count me in the crowd that misses the old portal. I used to check HA every day, though I've found myself stopping by once or twice a week now. Between looks and easy accesibility, the new design just doesn't seem to do it.

Also, if you're checking from say, a computer in a library or somewhere else where you aren't logged in, there is no View New Posts button, which can be further discouraging to someone looking around.

Me too. I used to check the active topics quite conveniently earlier on the portal page. Now it takes quite many clicks to get to where I want. I have been visiting HA once a week now. I used to visit several times a day.

Also I am generally quite annoyed by the reintroduction of the ads (donating member). The new HA renders not so well anymore on my default browser Opera.

I like HA boards a lot and appreciate the effort to improve it. The forum software has been updated many times since I've come her and in every one of them I liked the new one much better. This time I thought it is almost unbearable at times. I can imagine that there're many other users like me that are inclined to browse less because it has become a lot more inconvenient.

Is it just me or are HA turning into a forum for fb2k?

I don't like the new portal, so I bypass it altogether.

I still check HA regular, but find fewer and fewer posts not concerned with fb2k related issues. Now I think fb2k is a great program, but digital music is my main interest.

I don't expect that the fewer posts on non-fb2k topics is a sign of deminished interest in digital music, but maybe people are going elsewhere to discuss these matters.

A temporary solution to what? To thoughtful website design? Is there something worse coming?



And it's frequented by people who are overwhelmingly not Dibrom, without whom it would have shut down a long time ago.

I was surprised by how similar most of you felt about the new portal. I'd been avoiding the site too, maybe dropping in once a week out of habit or boredom, but not really enjoying it when it happened. If it doesn't break the site, my vote is to bring back the old start page and go from where we left off.

If you see threads about foobar outside foobar forum please let us know with the report post option. Or do you not like that foobar is posted as a solution to many problems?

me too! And I hate it Also, my personal Control-Page never shows if there are new posts...it doesn't really work. Even if I mark all forums as read, posts will still apear as new etc...also, there is no link to jump to the last unread post...it only appears if I browse through the forums...

me myself and I are not realy unhappy with the situation as it is now for once.
I don't think it is a big disadvantage to hit the 'active topics' from the portal. it could be a problem if you visit HA very seldom, but for regualr users, this should be allright IMHO. at least it is for me.
now, if the portal gets a litlle yeah-we-know-it's-sucks-and-we're-going-to-change-it-if-we-got-the-time upgrade, hopefully more new users acept the wiki and see it as a source of informations (~ less newbie question that where answered a hundred times), rather than a part of a 'suboptimal' portal.

I agree that as a regular it's not a big deal, but I think it's a very big deal if the old frontpage was more inviting for users to poke their heads into the forums than the new one is.

second that.
but this has been brought up 1000 times now, which makes one on the one hand realize that the users really don't like the appearance (understandable), on the other hand these repetitions get quite boring now IMHO.

now, Dibrom seems to have not much spare time ATM (also understandable), and the other mods/admins can't do magic either. a skinning contest was at the table at one time, but nothing happened until now. so let's just wait and see how things are going, or should some skilled and willing members show their proposals now? the lack of information is always one of the hardest things to deal with.

Personally I don't feel annoyed by newbies asking always the same questions...It gives me the possibility to answer them and to feel a bit proud of myself
Please revive the active topics on the starting site. My brower's HA bookmark leads now directly to "forums"...

I was about to ask about the Active Topics list, as it's been a while since I read Dibrom's posts about the upgrade, and found this "old" thread. It seems I share the view of many others, namely that the old Active Topics list was preferable to the new one. I don't care if it's a part of the portal or not, as long as I can link to it.
Maybe sehested, just like myself, doesn't like the fact that fb2k topics is included in the new "Active Topics"/"View New Posts" list(s). Most of my own posts has been posted in the fb2k part, but I like to visit that hosted forum separately. I used to enjoy reading about all kinds of subjects present in the old Active Topics list, but now I find myself hardly reading anything at all, except the hosted fb2k part. In addition to cluttering the general active topics list, the threads I have read in the hosted fb2k part is not marked as read in the other Active Topics/New posts list. I find that annoying, and because of that, I don't use it. Hence, I hardly read anything anymore. Or, at least not as much as I used to...

What I would like to see:
An Active Topics list without fb2k topics (not posts mentioning fb2k, but posts in the hosted forum), that can be linked to.

So, can someone please shed some light on the progress of getting things "up and running" the way they are ment to be? I really want to read, learn and enjoy like I used to.

Btw: I use Firefox...

I hope this makes sense, as I'm tired right now.